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Ambiance and Aesthetic

Wednesday, August 3

One of the questions people always seem to ask you when you're planning a wedding is "what are your colours?", which always sounded a little off to me. I mean, I'm a girl who wears black, white, and grey the vast majority of the time and I get sick of colours pretty easily. So, we opted not to choose "colours" per se, but instead tried to focus on the way we wanted our wedding to feel to our guests (and ourselves!).

I wanted to create an atmosphere that felt elegant, romantic, and intimate while still being modern and laid back. I was picturing candlelight, lush greenery, brass, brick, and wood, with a few graphic pops of black, and white. Given that Agricola Street Brasserie could not only tick all of those boxes (it already looks the way I would decorate somewhere else), but also has amazing food and drink (which were two of our top priorities) - it was a no brainer to choose them for our wedding venue, especially after we met with them and realized how fantastic they are to work with. I also can't overstate how amazing it is to have your wedding in a venue where very little needs to be done or outsourced. Don't get me wrong - I love to decorate; but on your wedding day, there are so many other things you should be focusing on that it's nice not to have to worry about those little details.

Because the Brasserie was already so beautiful, we decided to add just a few little extras to make it feel more "this is a special event!" and not just "this is a nice dinner out". That meant, flowers and candles for the tables, and a few little details elsewhere.

For our tables, we rented brass candlesticks, vases, and small planters from Make Merry to scatter along the tables. We had The Flower Shop fill the vases and planters with mostly greenery to create a lush feel and picked up boxes and boxes of white taper candles from Ikea for the candlesticks. We used the Brasserie's regular cloth napkins as they worked perfectly with the look we were going for, and folded them so they were long and could drape off the edge of the table. We placed a black cardstock place card on top of each napkin so guests knew where they should sit. Each table was also numbered with a hand-lettered sign (DIY to come), which was placed in a simple and modern gold holder, also rented from Make Merry.

Other than that, we brought in a few other brass accents for the guestbook art (DIY to come), cards, and welcome signs, as well as gold foil X and O balloons. And the Brasserie had their chalkboard artist come in and write out a few quotes we had chosen about love on the various chalkboards around the restaurant (as well as our wedding hashtag) - I love the way they turned out!

And lastly, I suppose I should share a little about our actual ceremony! It was held on the Brasserie's brand new rooftop patio, and we kept it super simple in terms of decor.

We used their existing chairs and benches, and just added a brass vase of greenery on the table we used to sign our marriage license and hung a greenery garland from The Flower Shop as our backdrop. That's it!

I also would be remiss if I didn't thank my mother-in-law and father-in-law, as well as my sister, brother-in-law, and niece for setting everything up on the day of our wedding. They did such a phenomenal job and it was so lovely to be able to enjoy getting ready with my bridesmaids and mom and not have to worry about all those little details (or worry much, haha). I also wanted to share how wonderful it is to work with Make Merry. Those girls are so professional, so prompt, have the most beautiful pieces to rent, and are just generally a delight to work with. All of our vendors were so great (Chelle Wootten Photography, the Brasserie, The Flower Shop, Halifax DJ Services, Allison Kirby, and Mischaela from Bowtique) - quick to respond to emails and made everything SO easy for us. Nothing was complicated or a trial - just wonderful professionals who are so talented at what they do. I couldn't recommend them more.